Mattias Härenstam, Hundekälte (Nächstes Jahr wirds noch kälter), 2003, single-channel

Born in Sweden in 1971, lives and works in Berlin and Oslo

The title Cold as a Dog’s Nose (Next year will be even colder) is a quote from Alfred Döblin’s Berlin-Alexanderplatz, published in 1929. As in the novel, the city itself plays an important role in the video, featuring the same proletarian districts of eastcentral Berlin, where Döblin’s antihero Franz Biberkopf roamed after getting out of jail. This documentary Berlin odyssey is seen through the subjective camera eye, filmed at knee height to represent a dog’s perspective, with sudden surreal, reverie-like interruptions. But these are just hallucinations, brief escapes that are quickly dissolved back into the harsh reality of post-communist (East) Berlin. Life in reunited Berlin, according to Härenstam, is still harsh and gray. Is Berlin really as attractive and sexy as it pretends to be?